So I took the plunge and bought myself some yard birds. First time having these stupid little drunken creatures as a willing adult. We had these fvckers growing up, but dad always sorted out the particulars and I just had to feed em' on time of face the "hose of suffering". Dad was an asshole that beat mom, but not because of the chickens I don't think, but maybe because I can see how they'd drive a man to drink.

Anyway, now that I have these sonsabitches, anything in particular to look out for or do? I want to be a good, caring poultry husband as I want my bitches earning their keep and giving me the goods on the regular. I'm not afraid to bust out the pimp hand and slap a chikenhead….just like dad.

They are about a week old now and seem to be healthy, messy little bastards that need non stop attention. They're like trailer trash in that regard so I figured half of you knuckle draggers here would have experience. I got 9 of these dirty hoes. 5 Rhode Islands, 2 white leghorns and 2 brown leghorns. The white leghorns do nothing but complain and the brown ones don't want to work. One of the brown leghorns is fully retarded and not well in the head. I named her/him/it after somebody that posts here.

So...anyway.

dum, dum dum dum

I know nothing about raising chickens except that my friend in the Machias area sometimes finds a pile of feathers instead of a chicken. Coyotes or bobcats probably had a KFC break.

That's quite the mystery about what you named your deadbeat retarded brown chicken.

What did you name yours Viagra boy?

You blew it. You're not supposed to admit that you're the dunce, er, deadbeat retarded brown chicken. We were suppose to guess!

So what is this obsession you have a about darksider's dicks or how their dicks perform? Huh, homo?

Successful poultry punchin requires poop and rodent management.

Lol look at your past 2 months.. Sh!t punch it to since you came back... Too bad you can't look at your other posts on the other account...

Or can you .....

Another stroke? You should get that looked at.

Jesus, Evotarded...even for your utter fuckedupedness, that was the fastest thread fagout ever.

Congrats, you own another record. You're racking up "#1s" as fast as Fat Nixon, and just as dubiously.

Fish on...

Todd

LOL O.M.G Fastest thread fuckerupper.

Here's EVOO at his buddy's house waiting for mom to pick him up.

What's with the fecal matter and dildos ?

and you just came in 2nd...

if you aint first you're last...

Nick,
We had pretty good luck with the R.I. and leghorns. Takes some patients to get started. Keep them watered, fed and their pen relatively clean. Later in life I had to clip wings on the leghorns. They kept escaping and I almost gave up on them. Fortunately, they survived and were prolific egg layers.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/

I also copied someone's chicken tractor to let them eat bugs without becoming dinner for the neighbor dogs.

Pheasant chicks are going to be available any day now. My neighbor is going to give it a go. Helped him put up a separate pen. Good fun.

We have raised chickens for , well, a really long time. Fresh eggs are nice. Plus, we feed them all the food scraps. The love meat, including fish guts, clam guts, mice, etc. If you feed them, say, clam guts, limit the amount as they will taint the eggs.

Chicks (whether human or avian) are a lot of work. Once fully feathered they can go outside. Some sort of pen is nice to keep them out of tings like gardens and keep them from being eaten. A light, on a timer, is necessary if you want eggs all winter.

They may be dangerous as a young rooster we had caused my broken ankle. They do have personalities and some are dumb as Darksiders.

My family had chickens growing up. We never had problems with Evotard screwing our chickens, but there is a thing called predator awareness that always occurred at some point. A predator or predators would become aware of the chickens and do everything to get them. Suddenly every night was war at the chicken coop and sleep was impacted. Typically it was Raccoon and even when my dad blasted them with his shotgun, they would be back eventually. In the end, the regular battle with predators made the effort not really worthwhile. We lived in a brushy area, if we had flat wide open ground it may have been different and easy to control.

It is pathetic that you assume he named his chickens, and thus take on this knowledgeable farmer attitude looking down on wannabe farmer Nick. Everything you post feels fake and self serving.

Thanks Erik - good advice and I'll check out that link. I can totally see how those rapscallion Leghorns could get naughty. The ones I got are turbo charged little punks compared to the Rhode Island Reds, except for that one retarded one. The white ones are like track stars which is odd because I thought the brown ones had the extra butt muscles. That's what Jimmy The Greek's book on backyard chicken husbandry says, but I digress.

I do feel awful about the retarded one. There is something wrong with it for certain. It eats and drinks some, but it just stands there and weeble-wobbles or it's laying down face first in sawdust and doesn't move just like Dad used to do after hitting the bars and mom. It's also only about half the size of the others too and not growing. I'm thinking of giving it the ol' Christopher Reeves treatment and dropping it from a horse. It's got 24 hours to get better or I'm giving it to Dan to ride into battle. Can you imagine the fear in the eyes of his enemies as Dan gallops up on a retarded baby chicken? Cute little saddle, stirrups and matching regiment outfits? A pointy shish-kabab stick as a jousting lance? That chit would be terrifying. I'd turn and run for the hills for certain.

FREEEEEDDDOOMMMM!!!!!!

Lol....I can see it now.
Little fvckin trumpets blaring and $hit.

Nick, I raised chickens when I was in high school and FFA, both show birds and layers. First and foremost, it's way more work than it's worth. You need a good, clean, and secure coop. Otherwise disease and predators will relieve you of your birds. Depending where you live, the predators include dogs, cats, skunks, raccoons, coyotes, hawks, and these days, probably tweekers.

Keep 'em warm when they are little. I had an incubator that had a heating element with a thermostat. I vaccinated birds when they were between 20 and 28 weeks old and beginning to lay eggs. Can't remember what the vaccine was for, but it was easy enough to do. A little double needle on a plastic stick that I'd stick in the webby section of the wing elbow. Good ration helps a lot with health and egg production. It's expensive, or was in the 60s.

If you have any roosters and they begin showing some attitude, trust me, it won't get better. Take the cleaver to 'em sooner rather than later.

I had a lot of fun raising livestock as a kid, probably learned a bit about responsibility, but stock and owning a car were the main reasons I had to work all through high school. Cattle and poultry cost me way more than I ever made off them. And that's the main reason why I haven't owned or kept any livestock since. I'm happy and much money ahead to pay the farmer to do it for me.

It's cute when you retards resort to the short jokes because I'm so intelligent and handsome.

You gotta play the cards you have, I guess.

Thanks Salmo and everyone else for the good advice.

I got all the supplies, coop and run from my neighbor that was forced to get outta the chicken business (something about felonies and pervert lists - I didn't ask too many questions). The coop is a very nice and very secure 8' x 8' x 8' backyard shed with power, lights, heaters, full floor, security and the whole shebang. I built a full 4"x6" pressure treated lumber base to rest it on. It's been dug out a foot deep all around the base and I've lined it with miles of chickenwire underneath to prevent critters from trying to dig under. A grizzly bear couldn't break into this thing.

I have some work to do on the run itself. Also dig down and line with chx wire all around and then poultry netting across the top. The location in my yard may lend itself to predators coming in from the field behind my house, but the system I'm putting in should be pretty tough to defeat. I can always set up an automatic .50 cal machine gun nest to patrol for critters. I might take out a neighbor or two, but hey....fresh eggs.

We'll see how this whole thing works out. I almost bought some ducks, geese and turkeys too, but that would just be dumb at this point. I'm trying very hard to not be dumb these days. Somedays are better than others, but as you can see, I still have a very long way to go.

FREEEEEDDDOOOMMM!!!!

Lol..

(Cue the trumpets)

Have had layers for a decade or so. Use to buy chicks but that was over pretty quick as a broody hen is a far better mother than I. Here are some of my suggestions:

Chicks can't generate enough BTU's to keep themselves warm without a heat lamp. Adjust heat lamp height based upon what the little blighters are showing you--Huddled together, too cold. Pushed into corners of your brood box, too hot. No lamp or momma hen to keep them warm, they can die.

Without a heat source, could be why you've got some that are lethargic. They will fall over mid-stride for a nap. They're not dying....

When handling adult birds, pick them up with hands over their wings so they can't flap. Rotate dominant hand under their breast bone with pinky and index fingers pointing aft on outside of legs. They won't flap once supported in such a manner. If they get carried away for some reason, you can hook the index/pinky fingers around the back of their legs to hold better, tucking their head under your armpit to quiet them. Chicks will also rest calmly in your palm in similar fashion.

For a brood box, get a big Rubbermaid storage tote (~18"x30"x15" deep) and make a frame with chicken wire (or even old oven grates) for a lid so the heat lamp can shine through. They'll start vaulting over the edge in a few days as their wings feather out.

Keep the brood box in an enclosed space like a spare bathroom or small side shop area. They will make a ton of dander/dust as they feather out and get boisterous. They will coat that whole space with it.

Don't put them outside until they're fully feathered-out and have a secure place. Death can come swiftly from land and air....

Start building your coop now. They need shelter and protection from extreme weather and things that will eat/kill them. Make sure it has a drawer or similar detail so cleaning out the litter is easy-peasy. Can even be a PVC tractor built with 1" Circo PVC fittings and PVC roofing/siding over chicken wire that you move around the yard/property.

Straw is sprayed with a fungicide to prevent mold/mildew. We use organic straw for litter so it goes straight into the garden.

Give them a place to lay eggs. Can be old milk crates, 5 gallon buckets on their sides with half the lid cut away for an opening, cat travel crates, etc.

They will turn any area that they are enclosed in into a lunar landscape in mere days. We're on acreage so they free range, keeping the bug and rodent population down. Makes for the healthiest birds and eggs.

Buy them quality organic feed! Scratch & Peck or Modesto Mills are good ones available locally. We use the latter. If you don't eat GMO corn or soy, why eat eggs made with same? In spring/summer when the grass is green and there abundant natural food sources, I hardly feed them at all. Watch what they leave in their trays.

A trough feed tray should have a return lip at the top of the tray or they will bill-out most of it onto the ground. This will also attract vermin.

Roos: If you've got the space for one and have at least 10 hens, they are the best early warning system for your flock. While their girls a beaks down/butts up eating, a roo is ever-vigilant, watching. Any threat will be forewarned with a Bruce Lee shout, allowing the girls a chance to get under trees/shrubs. A good one will take food from your hand and give it to his girls rather than partake himself and not be a serial rapist. Their absence is palpable after having them as part of your flock. Getting a good one requires effort from the get go. I handle ours every day from the time they start to show a larger comb as chicks. If they get uppity, they get laid on their side and pinned with my fingers at their neck and sides, pecking them with an finger like a dominant roo would do in a fight. They're legs/feet will curl up and shiver into a submissive state. Stand up slowly after about 5 minutes and they will oft stay there for a spell before bouncing up. Like all animals, you are either dominant or submissive in their eyes. Seems like Salmo was the latter.... *grin*

Get a kill cone. You will invariably have to humanely cull the sick/old hens and spare roos....

Good luck with that!

Unless they are penned, you don't want geese. They will eat your cedar siding, tarps, rope, shrubs and anything else within their reach. They're like goats with wings....

That's some really good intel Driftin'. Thank you for spending the time to write out your advice. I figured you'd have some good stuff to share based on your past experiences with these critters.

Adjustable heat lamp check. Good brooding box check (big galvanized feeding trough). They are in my protected garage right now and the temp seems to be staying pretty consistent.

They are on medicated chick feed now and seem to be doing well. How long do I need to feed them medicated scratch before feeding non-medicated? The young gal that the chicken shop said I could switch after they've ate the first 40 pound bag, but she was like 17 years old and possibly full of chit. Is that true?

Also, once they get old enough, what do you like to feed em' as supplemental treats and how often? Dried meal worms, live crickets or ???

I doubt I'll free range em' as the neighbors dogs are not nice, but their protected run will be about 12' x 16'. That should be plenty of space for 9 or so birds right? Well...soon to be 8 birds. The little retarded one isn't going to make the cut.

Speaking of which....what's the fastest, most pleasant way to dispatch a struggling chick? I could wring its neck or lop off its head, but I want it to be quick and painless for both the chick and me. I hate killin' little tiny baby animals. Adults no problem, but I have a hard time with babies.

If you bought them at Costco, you could just return them now...no questions asked.

12 gauge.
Just turn away from it.

Now you see it, now you dont.


Nick, i have a galvi tub that is like new if you need another.
If I were to eyeball it, I would say it's anywhere between 50-70 gallons.

Holy crap! So you just jam this "Finisher" device thing into the back of a bird's skull and twist? That's so messed up on so many levels. I mean, it appears to work on the YouTube videos just fine, but damn - what kind of person thinks that up? "You know what the world needs right now? A big sharp twisty stick thingy to jam into the back of birds heads!!!"

I must have missed the Shark Tank episode where this idea got pitched. Does it also work on Dark Siders?

Maybe I'm not cut out for this chicken business. Free chicks to a good home only!

Is the little one drinking? If not, grab it up with index fingertip behind head and gently dip its beak into the water. They should have it figured out in a couple days. Try yogurt or kefir with LIVE cultures to get their gut flora going for all of them, not just your slow starter. Your medicated starter will likely kill the good bugs too....

Have never fed medicated starter. Hatchery chicks are always shot up for Merek's so you're good. Get a bag of Scratch & Peck or Modesto Mills starter. Call around to source or go to their websites to find distributors. Are you prone to trusting 17 yo girls?

Give the slow starter some more time to see if it can pull in together with good support. They sleep alot the first few days and can run off their yolk bank account during that time....

Possibly - yeah - sure I'll take it. Could make a good duck water tank in the future. Send me a PM with price.

I did have to take out a sick baby bunny the other morning with my .22. Pop to the back of it's head and it literally blew brains about 10 feet up into the air. Baby bunny brains missed my face by inches. I dodged that chit like I'm Neo in the Matrix. Gnarly!

Yep - it eats and drinks pretty good. I'll try the yogurt trick. I think its neurological or something because it does seem to do the basics normally, but it just sits there and wobbles. It doesn't interact with the others at all. Its a fraction of the size of the other growing birds now. I've had them for almost a week and the other ones have doubled in size, but this one hasn't grown at all. I'm trying to be patient with it, but I don't want it to hurt the others or suffer needlessly. So far the others seem to leave it alone for the most part and I hope they don't start pecking at it. It is a sad little thing. I'm rooting for it. I'll try some more things and give a couple of days longer.

This.

Kill cone with razor sharp carpenter's knife for adult birds. Lift out legs from cone. With palm to back of bird, slide thumb & index finger down neck to jaw line, exposing flesh and slice down/across with blade tip safely passing between your index & middle fingers. Hold their feet together. If done right, they will openly flow from their near side carotid artery and slowly drift off as BP crashes, bucking a couple times at the very end.

Check its vent/cloaca to see if its blocked with poo. If so, soak its hiney in warm water to loosen and remove. They can get blocked up but it's rare. Must be that medicated starter.... *grin*

Don't forget the rat traps. I hear they like chicken coops.

Ratinator.

Bait it with chicken feed mixed with PB. Wear latex or nitrile gloves when handling/baiting it. They can smell your scent.

Nothing like taking a big, hissing buck rat for a swim....

Don't make this so difficult. Nothing purchased. Table scraps, apple cores, the extra cream off of your Brown Cow vanilla yogurt (hilarious feeding frenzy/food fight!)....

I raised chickens. I went the route of using an incubator and eggs.
Here's what I can recall from my yoot:

-You can hold chickens by their legs, turn them upside down, and they will go docile until you plop them upright again. It's a great party trick and fun to do with chickens from owners who think their chickens are family.

You can also take a big bullfrog and if you flip it on it's back on to the palm of your hand, it will splay out and go docile until you flip it back over. We would catch multiple bullfrogs and see how many we could stack up before the stack of frogs fell out/off of your hand and bullfrogs went leaping everywhere.

Fun times. Oh sorry, go derailed there.....

-Weasel/minks are chicken killing machines and can fit their little evil bodies through the smallest of holes. You know you'll have a mink/weasel problem when you discover all of your chickens in your coop have no heads.

-A coat hanger with a curve bent on the end of it and a hatchet work well to harvest chickens. Secure the cent end of the coat hanger around said chickens neck, pull towards you and preferably over a log/stump, and chop off the chickens head. I recommend you not do this around your horses, as they get agitated and tend to want to kick the headless chicken around like a soccer ball.

Chickens become tough and only good for soup stock really quickly. Pretty sure you will have them as egg layers and then pets until they pass. DogFish has the poultry/harvesting side of chicketing down to a science.

Get a cat to catch/eat all of the new rats at your place, as you will now have a rat problem.

You will find a chicken or two with a wonderful personality and those will make for a good/fun pet. They will follow you around, talk to you, eat out of your hand, and they probably think you're a fellow chicken bud. Maybe 1 in 10 turn out this way. The rest are, well, just fvcking chickens.

PS. "Mentally Challenged". Brown. Wobbly. Sickly looking. Any chance this poor little chicken is a of the Skykomish Hillbilly variety? Kinda sounds familiar.

You should fish with the guy. The stuff he says on a boat/water make me blush.

Ok, not really.

I will say we have had some pretty damn funny conversations on Doc's boat.

You can also use a piece of string to tie your rat trap to something...just in case you don't get a clean kill and the rat runs off with your trap.

I still haven't found the trap that a mouse ran off with last Fall. But I murderized a dozen of his kin. Peanut butter hidden inside the trigger does the trick. Replacing old garage door threshold seals finally stopped those fvckers from getting into my garage.

I'm over here laughing my ass off at that image. Then it hit me, the Budweiser football commercial, I bet the guy that wrote that raised chickens...

Keith

Where's Barbarosa? I bet that fvcker knows how to kill chickens

I thought it was armadillos.

I'm pretty sure those no good %$3%&@!!! armadilla sumbitches are for another use.

I'm sad to report that Ma Nature did me a solid and helped that little sick chick to cross the rainbow bridge & visit the great coop in the sky. Thanks Ma Nature! Sorry about your battle steed Dan! We'll pillage you another one from the next village we raid ok!

And then there were 8...

All of remaining birds are super healthy, active and growing like weeds. I have one bird that is getting pretty big compared to the others. This big one likes to roost on top of their little water bottle feeder and survey its domain. I'm thinking it might be a rooster. We'll find out and if so.....then there will be 7.

The good news is that this possible cross dressing, tranny rooster has a new name. I'll give you 3 guesses who I named it after.

Hank

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!!! Just not yet. Hankster needs to put on some weight first to get those Bingo Wings up to spec. Then you can gobble up my cock all you want Paker.

Oof.

These chickenheads provide more entertainment than first expected.

I was gonna say Hank too but got here too late.

Driftin', now you tell me! This all happened back in the 1960s, but I'm a bit surprised that our Vo Ag teacher didn't learn me about this way of dealing with the roos. He just taught us to leave 'em be until they were 8 to 10 weeks old and then turn them into fryer chickens. Anyway, I think I understood in those long gone days about dominant and submissive regarding livestock like cattle, but I must have been slow on the uptake when it came to poultry. But now I recollect a story from those days that you guys might enjoy. For a few years from junior high and high school I was quite the young farmer. I had 5 or 6 milk cows in those days and sold cream to Darigold down in Chehalis. I kept dairy stock and chickens, but it seemed like we had a steady stream of critters coming and going at our little stump ranch. Somehow a red rooster was living large, free of the chicken coop, and roaming around the barn or wherever he darn well pleased. He grew very large and became quite aggressive. He was a sneaky bastard as well. His favorite trick was to sneak up behind me while I was milking one of my cows and jump up on my back and start raking with his spurs. As you might imagine, the first few times this happened it startled the bejabbers out of me and occasionally resulted in some spilt milk. That pissed me off since I already wasn't making any real money in this enterprise to begin with. It happened to my younger step-brother a couple times as well.

So that was it. My step-brother and his buddy determined that the tall red rooster's days were numbered. While we were up at the barn they found this old meat cleaver from who knows where, and the sharp edge of that thing must have been as dull as the back side of my hunting knife. So the two boys commenced chasing that rooster around the barn, the corral, the barn yard, and back in the barn before finally cornering that poor bird. I was already bent over laughing and then they took that bird to the chopping block and whacked away at his neck a couple of dozen times trying to sever its head off with what had to be the dullest cleaver in the universe. I might have felt sorry if it had been any other chicken, but we were happy to see the meanest nastiest rooster I'd ever seen finally dead at last. It was a rangy and stringy old bird, and my mom couldn't do anything with it except make some chicken stock. But my step-brother and I felt extra satisfied turning that sumbitch into something useful after all the sneak attacks. And peace and tranquility returned to the milking parlor. Although now that I think about it, one of those 6 cows was a really mean Jersey bitch, but that would be another story . . . Those were the days . . .

Condolences to you and your chicklets. One of the inevitabilies of the farming life is death. Better it be a day old chick dying of "dirty butt", than you getting caught up in your tractor's PTO...amen.

There's more Facebook groups devoted to things poultry, than I'd care to count. Someone on Nextdoor suggested the following as good sources of information regarding chicken breeds, feeds, and care:

Western Washington Poultry, NW Poultry and PNW Poultry

Some of the group members have birds for sale or exchange. Others have equipment to sell or swap. Should be some helpful ideas on any of the sites.

Several of our friends raise chickens on their hobby farms; they get a lot of enjoyment, and a few eggs, from their birds. Have fun!

Salmo - I have a near identical story that I'll write up later after dark. In the meantime, the garden beckons...

Cedar - thanks for that great heads up! I'll check em' out.

I do this with my girlfriend so she knows who's fkn boss.

Except it's not my finger...

We used to call it chicken tv.

Since we're talking chickens, is it your little pecker?

My wife treats our chickens and ducks like pets, they eat well.

Due to attrition we're down to two hens and two ducks, one is a male though.

They free ranged until three were killed in a short period of time.

We get four eggs every day, its hard to eat that many, when we had more chickens it was hard to give enough away.

It gets below 0F here, I only turn the light on at night if its going to be below the mid teens. At 10F the chickens start roosting inside the coop, the rest of the time they roost outside.

The ducks like it inside all year.

As a kid we had chickens, they free ranged 100% of the time. We had to hunt everywhere for the eggs.

We had that mean rooster too, all of us were afraid of it. It was always fun to watch a friend have his first encounter with it.

Why would you insinuate size,are you feeling inadequate? I have never once given a rats ass about anything of the sort regarding any men here,assuming you are a man,hell,you very well could be a hermaphrodite. I still wouldn't care. I don't judge people on things they have no control over. More low brow insults as I have come to expect nothing less from the likes of you,and certainly nothing more.


You're so weak.

3 star

So my mean rooster story...

My old man was a Dentist. When he turned 35 (I think), his buddies bought a baby pig, bunches of chickens and ducks and free range released them in his dental office during business hours. Super brilliant and super dickish.

So, we ended up with all these critters back home on the farm. The chicks and ducks grew into fryer size and we had a big family event to slaughter and pluck. One chicken escaped the pen during this killin' madness and we were never able to catch it again. He lived and turned into a regal prick of a rooster.

This rooster, as most roosters are, was a complete cocksucker. He used to harass everything, especially our horses. Poor horses would get pecked to death by this thing and you could tell they hated this bird. Anyway, one day, Mom and I were cleaning out stalls and here comes this cocksucker. I was maybe in 1st grade, so I was little. So this bird was struttin' around and acting the arsehole to the horses. I tried pushing him away with the shovel and this prick just loses it. He climbed up on me and went straight for my eyes. Of course I start screaming for mom and running around with this jerk stuck to my head. My mom goes into mom mode and starts trying to knock this rooster off my head. She's screaming, I'm screaming and this Rooster is screaming. My dad, hearing the ruckus comes outside to see this Rooster molesting his only son. Nods his head, goes back inside for a moment and comes back out packing the 12 ga. He calmly walks across the yard, loading some shells. He gets up to us, knocks that bird off my head onto the ground and pops it point blank with that 12. BOOM! Feathers everywhere. No more rooster. My sisters cried because it was like their pet or something. Getting bloodied by that cocksucker was totally worth it to see my sisters bawl their eyes out. HAHAHAHA!!! I'm a good brother. The end.

2 less than 5.

Almost there, if Nap had an eye pecked out and had to wear an eye patch this thing would be 5*.

Bump for growing chicks. Still got 8 happy and healthy peckerwoods.

These things grow like weeds! Such messy little creatures. Eat. Poop. Scratch. Sleep. Repeat.

They are definitely starting to chill out and see me as friend and not foe. The "hand of certain doom" is now more of a curiosity than a threat and they are learning it brings tasty treats instead of death.

Just a couple more weeks and they should be ready for the great outdoors.

We have the daytime Chicken Channel here. With a Randy Roo, we have the Chicken Porn Channel too. Nighttime programming usually involves special guest raccoons and coyotes....

Congrats on becoming a dominant member of your new flock. Hand feeding and regularly handling them (breast bone in the palm of your hand with their feet dangling betwixt fingers) with an accompanying treat will make them easier to handle in the future....

Bad Bad Leroy Brown. Baddest bird in the whole damn town.

My young rooster, Leroy Brown, is a uppity jackwagon who's days are extremely numbered. Cocksucker pecked me twice this evening when I went to clean out their cage.

This was his first major show of insolence and insubordination. He thinks he's tuff stuff. The Havalon and the 'Traffic Cone of Quietus' awaits you my ill-mannered, yet tasty friend. I will have my vengeance.

Tick Tock Leroy.

Way to go Nick! Thanks for bringing back the memories I have of my youthful days as a would be farmer. I had to work my way through high school, in part to support my car, and the other part was to support my money losing chicken and cattle un-business. I had my share of roosters who developed anti-social attitudes, in addition to the story I related earlier about the big red rooster my step-brother and his friend killed. Fortunately, young roosters make decent and tasty fryer chicken.

206ers remind me of a bunch of hens running around with no feathers on the back of their skull. Just a matter of time until there is a bloody hole followed by a slow downward flop.

Better hope the rest of the country feels compassionate and wears their beakers.

Wait till you see the chicken Taj Mahal I've been building them. Their new digs are gonna be ultra bougie deluxe by chicken standards. Built like a brick chit house Chicken Fort Knox. I have like 20 full days into already. I'll get some pics posted once it's all done. I should have taken pics during construction for historical purposes, but once I get to workin', I just go to work and pics are the last thing on my mind.

I've also been slamming in a victory garden this spring, so my hands have been extremely full. Everything is pcoming up great. By the looks of it, my potato harvest is gonna be swell. I'm growing everything in gigantic fabric bags, so it's a different twist to container planting. We'll see how it goes...

You're like a weird cat lady. Only different.

You're the weird chicken dude.

it's not that weird....really.

This is the dream.

Do you know how many fine babes I'm gonna pull when I walk into parties with my chicken buddy under my arm?

Don't hate. Get game.

G
T
C
Lifestyle YO!

Gym.

Tan.

Chicken.

Bring a couple turkey hunting with us and we can use them as decoys.

Fish on...

Todd

Chicken Update 06/01/2020

I got these stinky little birds out of my house yesterday afternoon and into their mansion coop. They took right to it and are happy, happy. Runnin' and scootin' and scratchin' and peckin'. Doing happy chicken things in their greatly expanded new home.

I'm going to leave them in their 8' x 8' coop with a heat lamp at night for about a week to harden them off. I still need to get their run netting installed before I let them outdoors, but most of the hard work is done.

Stupid birds.

Sounds like you care for them quite a bit. Quarantine getting a little lonely?

So Leroy can legit fly. This is not good at all.

I haven't got my poultry netting up over the top of their run (yet) and last night, that Cock flew up many feet to sit on top of the coop and then stared me down. Like "what are YOU going to do about it?"

Soon Leroy. I will do something about it very soon Leroy.

PS...I'm also training my real yard birds (crows) with dog food. I place the dog food just outside my roommates bedroom window every morning. Got a family of 7 or so and they all like to sing me the song of their peoples. Heaven forbid if feed them one minute past 6 am. So I feed them exactly at 6:05 am.

Dude you need a girlfriend.

You dick.

My neighbor does the same $hit. She leaves a pile of grain out in the morning for the squirrels.

Those fvcks go off as soon as the sun comes up.

Are we neighbors?

The roomie legit asked me what the hell I'm doing (and if you know my roomie...well you know my roomie. It's 24/7 dicey at best). I told him I'm trying to train the crows to bring me shiny objects like bottle caps, dimes and bubble gum wrappers. He went absolutely blank for about 5 seconds and muttered..."you are trading my sleep for used bottle caps?".

Coldly and without hesitation I starred him directly in the eyes and said "yes".

I haven't seen him since...

Get some heavy duty scissors and trim the flight feathers on one wing back a couple inches.
Then feed them real good, the flight characteristics of a fat chicken is not that impressive.

Jaek gets it. Yes - he does.

2Dads,
When you post that a cock is looking down on you saying...................... "what are you gonna do about it" ........................
That should trigger a few rainbow flag alerts.

Give the dude roommate a break and head to the grocery store.

Only you would think of these things in such context. Used to being on your knees and all that.

Lol. Roasted.

WDFW - If'n you saw what's slinkin' around my local grocery stores, you'd never leave the house and force starve yourself.

They're either disgustingly fat white trash methy MAGA slobs or purple haired, bull nose ring tattoo cuttin' stabin' bitches. There is exactly zero in-between.

I need to move is what I need to do.

Maybe you need to change grocery stores.

Try Woodinville instead of Snohomish and Bothell

Fish on...

Todd

My dudes....Mill Creek Central Market and Tops Foods in Woodinville. It's not gonna get any better than that, anywhere in this state and it's still shite. SHITE!

If Woodinmuff isn't working head to the community garden.

or

Take Todd's advice.
He's truly trying to help you.
He's also sympathetic to the LSB issue.

Agree. When I go to the supermarket, which I rarely do (I order for pickup except for meats), I go to Haggen. It costs more but has much fewer mouth breathing, knuckle dragging "I won't wear a mask" dipshits than the local Safeway. At least on mid morning weekdays.

Lol.



I don't believe that.
Nothing looks good out there to you nick?

I know that 206 air can make a man feel funny.

Who really gives 2chits how you get your groceries?

One thing is for sure.... the stuff you buy is wrapped in shrink wrap.

Try using it for your next mask.

When did 2many become 2unfunny? C'mon, step it up, punk.

Still don't care.

Anyone who posts as many lovey dovey selfies of them with their broad on social media with the captions "Missing my boo" or "she completes me" deserves everything they get .

Anyone on this website that complains to a moderator is a b!tch. I know one complained about me,he knows who he is,I know who he is,and it's interesting that he didn't have the balls to PM me and have a dialog,I am a reasonable guy. I would have told him to [Bleeeeep!] off likely,but still

That's why we have poles on here, if you don't like someone, start a Pole and vote them off. ArvidBarker and I are still here.

ArvidBarker


Paker,make this my new title!!!!

I also must add,I have a 72% approval rating on here ,and I voted for myself to get the hammer,and Salmo had a senior moment and accidentally voted against . So if you add those 2 votes,hell I'm almost at 80%. Shows how sick these people are around here .

Ok

I think I've renamed half of everyone on the DS. Frank was my crowning achievement, however, id rather him stay gone...lol

Fvckyou I have to live with it. 3rd wheel dinners in my own home are fookin' awkward. I flip chit, but it's fine really otherwise I'd pull the plug.

The real trick is to play "accidental" nature boy just one time. That stops chit dead cold in the water.

Oh....and your own personal murder army of highly trained Crows. Crows are fantastic! I'm getting to be an old man. I'm not sleeping anyway.

I couldn't help but think about Nick when I heard this song.
At least I wasn't in the shower.

Nick is a more sophisticated chickenfvcker.

I'm equal opportunity here. Of course I'll go as high brow as possible, but water seeks it's own level, so...uh....there's that.

My crows are getting pretty dialed into our routine now and are very happy when I show up. I shake their little dog dish of kibble and they are right there in an instant. Still no shiny trinkets though. We'll need to work on that.

My chix are pretty much fully grown now I think more or less. Eggs should start showing up in about 1 - 1.5 months. LeRoy is a well practiced crowing machine now....from sunrise to sunset. He's only got about another month or so while he fills out a bit, then it's a chop chop here and chop chop there....

So he'll be joining Colonel Sander's army?

Yep! It looks like Toof and his gal are going to take care of business for me. I guess she needs to learn about killin' things and get some first hand experience in said endeavors. This is a very good thing. LeRoy will make a fine dinner for Toof and gal. Happy to share and I welcome anyone that needs to learn where meat comes from.

All I ask in return is that Toof's gal ties up a 7x7 elk to a tree for me. I firmly believe that she can do it! If'n you knew Toof's gal, you'd know that she is amazing and can probably do anything she really wanted, including tying up a dandy elk!

I'll let her know...and while she's pretty amazing at a lot of things, I don't think she's ever tied up an elk before...but I wouldn't put it past her.

Fish on...

Todd

Not an elk, but a 3 point blacktail was in the yard the other day chomping on the sacrificial red twig dogwood that the deer really love. He's a dandy specimen, so I chained him to a fence post and plan to feed him rolled oats and barley from now until the September archery season. I haven't bought a hunting license or deer tag cuz I plan to claim that I'm just defending my yard and garden from predator damage. If that's a problem, alternatively maybe Nick would come put an arrow through him.

Absolutely! Better not temp fate.

Please get back on your meds.

Went out this morning to find a racoon had killed the chickens and one duck. One duck is still alive, but injured.

I may need to hire Rich and his mercenaries to hunt the racoon down and dispatch it.

That group of bikers did wonders in the chop zone, Rich should be able to bring them too.

On second thought, he may already have a Bigfoot monitoring this area for Qanon. They may already know of this and be taking measures to handle it.

Just post on Facebook that you saw on Reddit a reputable quote from 4Chan that someone told someone's cousin that QAnon said there was going to be an Antifa rally in your chicken coop.

You'll have six fat stupid clowns dressed like they bought their outfits from the classifieds in Soldier of Fortune surrounding your coop by dusk.

You'll have to accept the fact that at least one of them will shoot himself in the foot, so have bandages handy, and they'll probably leave a bunch of Chik-fil-A wrappers all over your yard along with Coors Light and White Claw cans...but you'll have chickens, until one of them decides to eat one, and they all feeding frenzy on the entire coop.

At the end of the, same result, only much more entertaining.

Fish on...

Todd

I need to thank Rich, they were on top of this immediately, I now feel much safer in this scary world knowing professionals like these have My back.

His group delivered the offender this morning, it had returned to the scene of the crime.

Anybody have a good recipe?

Sorry to hear about your girls. I'd go medieval if any critters got near my flock. Glad to hear you got the perp. They are greedy little bassturds and will often come back to the scene of their crime. Sorta like Dan hanging out in the looky-loo crowd during a big 5 alarm fire. "Hey everyone - what's going on? I hope they catch the guy that did this".

I do have a simple beer marinated coon recipe. It's really easy...
1. Buy a (6) pack
2. Drink (1) beer
3. Toss coon out in the woods.
4. Drink remaining (5) beers

I had a bowl of coon stew down south and it was alright. Coon meat reminds be a bit like a cross of bear and pork. Fatty, dark, stringy meat. It didn't have any crazy or weird flavor - just tasted like game meat stew. I had to gag just to get the bowl down because of knowing what it was. Moonshine helps wash it down.

I knew a guy who grew up eating coon stew.

ODRVR - you know this already, but be wary of any Coons you see out during daylight hours. Pop and handle em' from a distance. Day coons are generally bad news bears.

Todd shot the nattiest, mangy Chupacabra looking song dog last year during deer season. This thing was the single most disgusting wild animal I've ever seen in person. Puke worthy. So what did Todd do? He picked it up and carried it back to camp and chucked it on the ground right outside the camper. WTF dude!?!? Why would you even touch it, plus I had my dogs in camp. I literally insisted that we burn the actual ground with gas before I let my dogs out of the camper. They laughed at me, but yeah, burn that chit off. Twice just to be certain. Christ.

I just started on Nick's first marinade recipe.

I'll let you know how good it is this afternoon.

If it doesn't work I'll try doing it again later today.

It can be hard to get every nuanced detail of a new recipe right on the first try.

The key step is to get the timing between beer 5 and 6 just right. You if you get that step wrong, the whole recipe can turn to chit in a hurry.

Todd btw....you need to make plans to come deal with LeRoy mid-August or about month from now. He could go now if'n you wanted, I'm just trying to put some weight on him for you and let some tying feathers fill out a bit. He's got a real nice cape for not being a special tying breed. Nice, decently long thinner width hackles in two toned buckskin outer with a darker brown center. He'll tie nice flies for size 8 - 12 brown hackle anything.

He must be gone before Sept 1st - so work it out eh.

We'll manage that easily enough...I'll have my girl start sharpening her hatchet now

You can have the feathers.

Fish on...

Todd

Well Ol' LeRoy met his fate a couple of weekends ago. Todd's gal did a great job.

I've started to get my first eggs, which is very cool. The eggs are pretty small, so I think they are coming from my little white leghorns and not my big fat Rhode Island Reds. It shouldn't be too long and all my gals will be pumpin' out the goods.

Egg production is directly proportional to day length.

The Leghorns will, I believe laye white eggs while the Reds will do brown.

And, like Illahee said, you will need lights all winter to keep them laying.

Yep, layers were really starting to slow down within the last mongth, now with the smoke it's really down-shifted production. Direct correlation to daylight....

LeRoy was a little chewier than I had hoped, but he was certainly tasty, and my lovely lady now can do more than just give lip service to "knowing where her food comes from"...she killed him, skinned and gutted him, butchered him and cooked him...and then we ate him.

Fish on...

Todd

As noted above, egg production is indeed proportional to daylight and related factors. Contrary to what some do by illuminating a coop to mitigate the natural winter's decline, we have always aligned with Ma Nature and allowed the free-range girls to have a much needed rest during that time betwixt Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day when natural nutritional resources are also at an ebb. As a result, we have some of our flock that are nearly a decade old and still produce a beautiful egg every day or two during spring/summer....

Pro Tips:

As layers age, or get stressed, they start to lose the natural yellow pigmentation (carotene) in their beak, skin, hocks, feet, vent and eye ring in what is referred to as bleaching. Their combs and egg yolks will similarly pale. If one does force winter laying, keep a close eye for any signs of such bleaching. If one is using an incandescent light bulb to heat a coop in the winter to keep combs from freezing, they need to build a better coop or change breeds for ones with smaller combs. In the PNW, most breeds will do just fine with a coop that shelters them from night time predators and winter winds.

Should one have the opportunity to eat an uppity roo, make soup and simmer the carcass/stock for at least 3 hours. Blanch the hocks/feet and peel the scaly skin/nails before adding them to the stock (According to traditional Chinese medicine, birds hold their Qi in their feet, thus "dragon claws" at such restaurants). Onions, garlic, ginger root, carrots, celery, a dash of tamari sauce and whatever else works for you will make for a tender chicken soup and/or sandwich meat. The free range layer/dual purpose breeds are not tender like the caged Cornish X fryers that one buys at Safeway.

Outside of LeRoy's tastiest bits, the rest of him all ended up in the stock pot...he has been featured in two pots of soup already.

Fish on...

Todd

My Reds are starting to lay their first brown eggs now. I did get a double yolk Leghorn egg and that was cool. I am easily entertained and the coolness factor bar is set very low.

All my girls are right on schedule for laying their first eggs and I'm excited for that, but I do think I'll give them a rest over the coming winter.

Next spring, I'm thinking of adding a new type of hen to the mix. Probably Easter Eggers for the green eggs to complete the color trifecta.

Anyway, that's my chicken update. Thanks for reading.

Aruacanas lay colored eggs.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Don't be jelly of my flock. It's not cool to covet another man's birds.

"Chickens are the original punk rockers!"
- Iggy Pop

You redeemed this thread with an Iggy quote.

My favorite Iggy quote,when asked why he banged a couple hideous fat girls after a show,he replied "Sometimes you just gotta wallow in the mud."

Chicken update....

I'm still getting a good amount of winter eggs, even though I'm not supplementing any light.

I've stacked up 4 dozen eggs (that's 48 eggs Arvid) for a mondo batch of spicy pickled eggs.

I got a one gallon mason jar that's gonna be stuffed soon.

Some salt, sugar, white vinegar, water, mustard seed, black peppercorn, garlic cloves, jalapenos, red chili flake, hot sauce, dash of liquid smoke and worchestshiresaucen. They'll last in their pickling brine in the fridge for a year or two. However, 4 dozen eggs (that's 48 eggs Arvid) won't last long.

Also thinking of doing an Asian style batch with rice wine vinegar, mirin, soy, chili paste, wasabi, lemongrass, ginger, garlic etc. Perfect for dropping into a bowl of ramen.

I have really good, healthy toots.

Pickled eggs are awesome. I can eat about fitty.

Put me down for one of those (48) eggs in the ramen style Nap

also...

I knew it. It was a 50/50 shot of either this or watching some grass grow.

Grams and Moms used to make pickled eggs growing up and I helped a few times (and always ate more than my fair share). It's not hard, but I do want to get a couple of different recipes dialed in. I'm pretty interested to see how the Asian style turns out. We eat a lot of Ramen around here, so those should be a hit. I've perfected my fresh jammy egg for optimal ooze, but those are kinda boring from a flavor profile.

Jesus Toff, watch your topknot around her.

Bump for the excitement!

Back to chickens.

I pick up an assortment of new chicks this week.

We had ducks over the winter after the last batch of chickens were taken care of by a raccoon. Raccoons must be allergic to chickens, they don't seem to live long after eating them.

I need to move the chicken coop and rearrange things, we had a heavy wet snow that dropped trees on the pen and messed things up.

We have a flock of turkeys that show up every morning, I feed them leftover pig food (another story) our cat (yet another story) goes out and hangs with the turkeys.

The pig just showed up one day and decided it wanted to live here, it was an old scarred up sow, she was very friendly.

It took over an unused dog house and became one of the family. It would follow you around and help feed the chickens or just participate in anything you were doing. We didn't own it, although I did feed it, I didn't try to keep it here, it would wander away sometimes and then show back up a few days later.

One day it never came back, we were a bit sad, but it probably made a good meal for the cougar or bear that hang out around here. I haven't seen any wolf sign for a long time, so it probably wasn't a wolf.

The cat just showed up one day too, it's very friendly and keeps the area clear of rodents, including the chipmunks that terrorized the garden. We actually now harvest vegetables from the planters on the deck.

We can't let the cat in the house because it climbs on everything, plus we rescued a small bird a couple years ago and cat goes after it through the cage as soon as it gets through the door. The cat is a very efficient killing machine.

The cat liked to hang out with the pig, and the cat, pig and dogs would all help feed the chickens and clean the coop, it was an everyday ritual. They all got along as one happy family.

LOL @ the Green Acres action!

Just entered my order for a couple of Blue and Olive Eggers. I'll should be getting the entire rainbow of egg colors going forward. I was thinking about putting in some Quail this year, but I'm going to wait until next spring.

We did not used to have much animal activity at our home until we decided to get a coup and some birds. Suddenly there was a lot more animal activity, predators and prey alike. Once the birds were gone, so was the rest of the wildlife.

-FishDam

Just picked up 36 6 week old quail chicks.
Incubate 50 pheasant eggs on 4/1. Probably do more.
75 day old pheasant chicks will come in the mail 5/14.

8 week old pup got his first quail this am.


Fuuck' Dem Chickens.

Same here....

Is that Racoon sleeping?

WDFW - what ya' doing with all those birds? Just pup training or ???

Pup training.

The momma duck finally hatched all the little ones last night. Cute little things.

One of the roosters has taken to chasing our small dog. The rooster is very friendly otherwise, it may be relocated to the neighbor's new coop and enclosure.

The neighbor's coop burned down about two months ago, killed all their chickens. The heat lamp for the chicks got knocked over by a hen.

This will be a very elaborate enclosure, he calls it his Trump Wall, it will keep out all those unclean
heathen predators.

It's about 10' tall, solid metal for the first two feet, then 1x6 vertical wood with little to no spacing. He hasn't started on the actual coop yet

He's getting a pig (meat), goat, ducks (from us) chickens and maybe a cow.

We had chickens at my home growing up. The raccoons were smart; they would have one come up and grab the fence and reach through, making noises, and scaring the chickens to the back side. Meanwhile, the other raccoons we silently hiding on the back and would reach through, kill the chickens, rip them apart to get them through the fence.

I think having no ground level fence is a great idea to deal with raccoons.

I think giving away roosters to someone who lives more than 200 yards from you is also a great idea!

My neighbor has one, and 4 chickens...thankfully the damn thing is not a very loud crower, because he crows 24/7.

Fish on...

Todd

I haven't been able to give the rooster to the neighbor yet. Their coop hasn't been rebuilt from when it burned to the ground a few months ago.

But now my two roosters don't play well together, the Barred Rock kicks its but every time they see each other. I have to keep them separated at all times, this is a bit of a hassle every morning and night.

Both are very friendly, you can pick them up, but the weaker one loves to go after the ducks, cats, dogs and everything else it can try to bully, but when it counts he can't pull it off. Not unlike certain members here.

Now that the two roosters have matured the crowing is constant, this may require another adjustment to the flock.